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Agreed, but then again Richard's doesn't sell finished "production" stocks. What they sell is like an 80% AR receiver. The bulk of the work is done, but it's in no way, shape or form ready to be assembled into a functioning firearm. You still need to go through and finish most every surface and complete the last 20% of the work to make it into a functional part.

With that said, could Richards modify their pattern stock to include a channel for the bolt? Sure they could. Would it eliminate the problem of having to pull the barreled action out of the stock to remove the bolt? Probably not. It's just the way the stock is designed, and as someone else noted - it clearly states high cheek piece in the description.

Jim B. - Site Administrator
I run a forum - someone please shoot me and put me out of my misery already

3 Richards stocks so far. 1 A grade, 1 Exhibition grade, 1 straight grain. Well... those were what I ordered. I got 1 AAA, 1 Exhibition grade and 1 that looked like straight grain but has the most incredible tiger striping I've ever seen down its whole length. All of them were factory seconds purchased on a budget where I exchanged my time in place of $$$ spent, so I had limited expectations of any sort of quality. They looked like they were machined with a chainsaw but the did shine up exceptionally well and I only ever got more than I paid for. It just took up to 6 months to receive some of them. 1 I got within 2 weeks while another I'd ordered months prior didn't arrive till months later. Calls were responded to with "Oh yeah, I've got that one shipping out today." which was always BS of the highest order.

They're cheap, they make a lot of errors, inletting is 99% for their "drop in" models despite what they say. The only thing I was always over satisfied with was the grade of wood actually delivered vs the grade ordered. I expected hit and miss and got hits out of the park each time but not without many hours of sanding and finishing and inletting and minor re-shaping. Recoil pad fitment was a fairly difficult process too... the back ends always seem way too big.

6 months later received my Tac-Driver. Actually everything i expected. I knew i was ordering a rough cut but i only expect a couple hours finish time on my end. Way to long of a wait but i plan to order more and will just forget about them till they arrive.

1. How is this guy still in biz after all of the horrible reviews and down right lousy customer service.

Because the Horrible reveiws are coming from folks that are part of the company's secondary market. RMF is not relying on "Us" the hobbyist gun tinkerers to stay in business. they sell to the public at large for the same reason specialist tool/indutrial supply sellers (Ex: Grainger, fastenal, etc) do, money's money and it always helps to have another source of income for the company.

you can be sure that most of RMF's business is selling to professional gunsmiths. Who are just as likely as the rest of us, if not more so to want to trim Hours and hours of stock shaping out of their schedule. Most shops offering custom built rifles (especially now that Sythetic rules the stock world) are not going to have the tooling (pantograph lathe, or now, a CNC turning/milling center dedicated to the task) to be able to rapidly produce stocks. It's much more cost effective for a 'Smith to farm out the first 80-95% of stock production leaving them to focus on the mechanical aspects of the rifle, with the final shaping and bedding of the stock being their only concerns on that front.

i'd almost bet that for every one stock sold to a "normal guy", probably 10-20 (or even 100)are sold to custom shops of various size.

On the subject of the high cheekpiece, one of the fairly big reasons they're high like that is so that the person who does the final shaping and fitting can cut them down as needed/wanted. don't want it that high, take a rasp to it like you're supposed to! the assumption on RMF's part is that you've either got the tools to shape the stock, or you're willing to get them.

This is my first RMF stock after about 3-4 hours of shaping and sanding. I forgot to get a pic of it as it came out of the shipping box, so in the first pic that black bar shows an approximation of what height the cheekpiece was when I received it, and after six years i may be underestimating a little. Second picture without the bar is the semi-final height and shaping of the cheekpiece

I think the best way to think of RMF in relation to the majority of us here, would to be to equate them to the companies that for a considerable savings over traditional builders will come to your lot/plot of land, put in a foundation with the stubbed-in plumbing, erect the interior structural and exterior portions of the house, and install some of the electrical leaving you with a almost functional but unfinished shell that You as the homeowner have to bring to a completed (and customized) state. Again you're trading your time spent finishing the stock both in final inlet, bedding, and exterior shaping and finishing for a noticably reduced price. for those with the inclination and or tools it's a very good deal. for those who're looking for an easy solution, it's a nightmare.

Personaly it's my veiw that you have to have a love of being out in your workspace making something for these stocks to be worthwhile. they simply are not for the impatient or those with a time crunch for whatever reason.

Detritus, that is very likely the case, but if so they need to be a little more truthful (saying it nicely) about what you will get. From their website "They come with either a 99% "Press-Fit" Inlet which means that the action will bolt to the stock with little to no handwork involved". This is what I would expect to get from Boyds. I ordered two 99% stocks from Richards at once and they both took hours and hours of work to complete. They looked like they were inletted with a wood chipper, literally chunks torn out. Richards needs to be up front with this info, show pics of the actual stock you will get rather than just finished ones, and there is NO excuse for their lack of customer service.

Werewolf: I think we have a fundamental difference of thought process and without calling you "wrong" allow me to debate you on the matter:

Take a lump of wood, say a nice 4"x4"x48" block of it (768 cubic inches). Now chop off 1% of the wood (7.7 cubic inches). It's actually quite a lot of wood you have there. If you didn't have to take off more than a few cubic inches in total then your concept of what you thought you were getting was flawed and that's a matter that you need to deal with.

If you were expecting bolt-in or anything like it you expected too much. You're buying wood that looks like a stock and is cut very well for the action intended but it's not ready until YOU DO SOME WORK. Period. 99% is not complete. It means you have work to do unless you luck the hell out. Griping about it doesn't make you right. 1 Guy in history was probably able to just drop his action in to an RMF 99% and that's enough to say "little or no handwork" and they're still right because you might just luck out (you might also win the lottery). If you've ever made a complete stock from a blank you know that hours and hours ain't jack squat. When you have 150 man hours into a stock then start griping. If your stock doesn't say "100% finished" then it ain't and you do a disservice to all of the DIY community making us look like griping old women expecting finished cabinetry when we ordered profiled lumber. Would you rather send back 3 stocks that are cut too loose to get one with proper wood to metal fit or would you rather have a good job done on the first one and have to be the one to do it?

Now you are 100% right in a manner of speaking on the CS and the fact that there's no excuse for doing that but again, like the man said: They don't care nor do they have to because we're not their core customer and we can go screw ourselves while they serve their core customer. I applaud them for knowing where their bread is buttered and where it's not. At least they're not trying to serve two masters.

As for pics of unfinished stocks: Why? Why show you the worst they'll look in a way that they're not intended to be used? I wanted to know how they'd finish up when I bought.

There, done debating. Don't get mad as this was not an attack. Please though, debate.

I agree that perhaps we had a misunderstanding, and I am not mad at you. I did not luck out in my dealings with Richards, what really upset me is that I expected to do the sanding and finishing, but got two stocks that I had to repair before they were usable and just about completely reshape. nowhere near 99% or "cut very well for the action intended". And forget about calling them about it. I literally had to glue pieces back into the inletting that had been almost ripped out and were hanging by splinters on one of them, and then bed over the repairs. I am not just griping, I had a legitimate complaint and Richards wasn't there for me. I personally felt they were not up front about things, but maybe thats just me as well. We could debate about it all day, but at the end of that day I would still never buy from Richards again. If they don't care about or need my business I will take it somewhere else. If you are OK with any business taking your money and then saying screw you you're not my core customer thats your right. It's my right to say I'm not OK with it.

Damaged goods are easy to deal with, credit card charge-back. They'll definitely call you when they get a charge-back because it costs them substantially and affects their ability to accept credit cards at all if not properly dealt with. I can totally sympathize with receiving a fundamentally damaged item and having crap customer service but you're not stuck... there are remedies in law and calling the order line and letting them know you're about to do a charge-back will usually have a new item shipped to you that day or a refund. Out of curiosity what action was the stock for?

I bought one for a left hand mini mauser because they were the only outfit I could find at the time that did an action inlet. I bought a "95%" stock that came more like 70%. I was also expecting a nicer piece of wood than I got. Seems like the shipped 1 grade less than I thought I was getting, but it took 4 months to come in and I decided to just go for it. I spent countless hours getting the action to drop in, radically widen the barrel channel, cut the bolt notch, wow it was a lot of work. I was expecting the rough outside, and that's easy to deal with, but it was all the action inleting that ate my lunch. I had to buy tools and learn skills I was not anticipating. Turned out ok I guess for a first time, but I would not do it again.